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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22778281">piecemeal</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/androgenius/pseuds/androgenius'>androgenius</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dimilix Week [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Masturbation, Pining, implied ashe/dedue and sylvain/ingrid, no beta we die like Glenn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 15:21:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,665</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22778281</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/androgenius/pseuds/androgenius</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dimilix Week Day 4 - Duty</p><p>It was said that when Dimitri passed, Felix's grief was more potent than even the queen's.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dimilix Week [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1634758</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>2020 Dimilix Week</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>piecemeal</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This one hurt to write, fam. I can't imagine that it'll be any better to read.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dimitri used to say he would hear the voices of the dead, their anguished cries. </p><p>Felix didn't always believe him.</p><p>If Dimitri were here now, he would have been ashamed to tell him that this has changed-- that he believes him now. And that he wishes he were so lucky.</p><p>It doesn't matter. The cacophony of cries having taken up residence in his mind are merely his own grief, and nothing more. </p><p>The queen tells him that he should be proud, that he did everything he could, but that alone seems a betrayal of his memory. There is no pride to be found in this, no joy, and he wonders how anyone in the castle can so much as even consider laughing when Felix's world is draped in shrouds. </p><p>Times past when the two of them weren't close seem far too distant a memory for him to draw any comfort from it whatsoever, none of it enough to soften the blow of his grief. </p><p>Memories never did anything for Dimitri but harm him-- he supposes that he's just the same now. </p><p>Because they were reunited. Because Dimitri got better, and Felix learned to forgive. </p><p>For a long time now, he hasn't been the type to cry. But he knows all too well that he can, knows when the grief is so close to the surface that not even anger will allow him to contain it any longer. </p><p>He didn't cry for his father, but he cried for Glenn, and even used to cry for Dimitri. The fact that they were children-- that he was a child-- matters not. </p><p>He knows what it's like to <em>hurt,</em> to feel so deeply it threatens to tear one apart. </p><p>None of his previous grief compares to this. No betrayal, no heartbreak, no death could have wounded him as deeply as the loss of Dimitri, let alone prepared him to feel with such depth. It feels not unlike losing a limb-- his sword arm, perhaps. A part of himself so indispensable to his very being that the idea alone of living without it becomes unthinkable, unbearable. </p><p>"He wouldn't want you to mourn him," Ashe tells him on his visit. He wants to be annoyed by the fact that all of their old friends are here in the capital with him, but he can hardly blame them for coming to Dimitri's funeral procession to pay their respects.</p><p>The queen mourns in name only, and Felix resents her for it just as much as he is somehow relieved--</p><p>As though this part of Dimitri, the grief, is his alone to hold onto. </p><p>He knows he's being selfish, knows that Dimitri deserves the whole world to mourn him-- but not like this, not the way that Felix is mourning him.</p><p>Still, he can't help but want to punch Ashe all the same. </p><p>"I'm not going to be happy about losing my--" He falters. It means nothing. "I can't."</p><p>"I'm not saying that you should be happy, I just..."</p><p>"It means you look like hell," Sylvain adds, coming up behind Ashe to clap a hand onto his shoulder. "When was the last time you slept?" </p><p>"It doesn't matter." Anyone would be able to tell that it's been a while.</p><p>"I mean, I can't really blame you. If Ingrid died, I'd probably be a wreck for months."</p><p>"That's true," Ashe nods. "If something happened to Dedue... it would be hard to find a new reason to smile."</p><p>"But that's-- different." He shakes his head. They're talking about spouses. He-- he wasn't married to Dimitri.</p><p>The thought comes coupled with a fresh wave of resentment for the queen. Why isn't <em>she</em> mourning the way he is? Maybe if he didn't feel like he had to personally take all the mourning on himself... </p><p>"But didn't you love him?" Ashe asks, as though it was even a question.</p><p>"Of course I love him-- <em>loved...</em> him. Why is that so surprising? Everyone loves their friends. I was his closest advisor. Why wouldn't I love my king?"</p><p>"I don't think that's what Ashe meant, buddy."</p><p>"In love. Weren't you <em>in love</em> with him?"</p><p>It feels a little as though Ashe has single-handedly taken him out by the kneecaps. So he leaves the room before the urge to vomit sinks in in full. </p><p>It's normal to love the king. It's not normal to be in love with him, unless one is the queen. </p><p>Be he was, wasn't he? </p><p>In love with Dimitri. His Dimitri. </p><p>He still is. If anything, he's not sure there was ever a time he wasn't in love with His Highness the Prince, the Boar, the King. </p><p>How could he have been so blind? </p><p>He supposes it would never have eluded him had the rebellion never happened, had Dimitri not lost everything and turned into the boar. Before that, they had been virtually inseparable, and he'd cry whenever he was denied his time with his Dimitri. </p><p>Even if it had taken him some time following his boar phase, he found his way back again. They both did. </p><p>Loving Dimitri has always been... logical. </p><p>He just didn't think... </p><p>He has to wonder what kind of an idiot he must have been to not realize it any sooner. Still, logical though it may be-- the knowledge comes alongside a volley of regrets threatening to drown him in hypotheticals.</p><p>
  <em>What if he'd realized it sooner?</em>
</p><p>Would he have said something? Would he have had the courage to risk their friendship, and, more importantly, would he have managed to do so in time? Before Dimitri got married to that shrew--</p><p>Would Dimitri have felt the same?</p><p>He tries to think back to piece together any signs that may have pointed to his feelings being reciprocated, and quickly scraps the notion altogether. It feels like he's pandering to himself, and he's above self-pity.</p><p>He doesn't need his own patronizing attempt at placating his own heart-- and wounding it all the more in the process regardless of the outcome. </p><p>It <em>hurts.</em> </p><p>Why in all of Faerghus would Dimitri have ever come to have feelings for <em>him,</em> of all people? </p><p>He's in the king's former bedchamber before he realizes where he was even going. </p><p>Dimitri's room.</p><p>The armor he was wearing when he died still stands proud-- on display now, the sight of it garish enough to make Felix want to tear it all down, to destroy with abandon. Instead, he decides to remove the fur cape to pull into his arms.</p><p>It's been cleaned-- because of course it was, and yet-- there is no erasing Dimitri, no scrubbing him out of fabric or skin. Burying his nose in the fur of his collar, Felix allows himself to inhale, truly, deeply. </p><p>He doesn't realize he's crying until the fell beneath him is damp against his chin. But instead of making the tears stop, they only seem to come all the faster as a result. </p><p>It smells so much like Dimitri-- <em>feels</em> so much like holding Dimitri-- that Felix allows his knees to buckle. He doesn't expect to end up on the bed, but it makes little difference-- it, too, smells like Dimitri. </p><p>Allowing himself to lie down, Felix feels a sob bubble up and out of his throat. Clinging to his cloak like this, it's almost like he's here, but it's a sad, pathetic lie he's telling himself, isn't it? That Dimitri would have wanted this-- would have wanted to wake up with Felix by his side.</p><p> </p><p>&amp;</p><p> </p><p>He tries not to go to the funeral procession. </p><p>Sylvain forces him out of bed and makes him get dressed even despite his myriad complaints, and Felix can't muster up the willpower to deny him. </p><p>He doesn't want to go, but he knows what his duty is, knows what he's meant to do in the name of his late king, in the name of his title as royal advisor. </p><p>So he marches at the side of the casket, the feel of the pall under his hand suffocating. How could there only be fabric and some wood between them? </p><p>Dimitri feels so close, and yet so far. </p><p>He swore to himself not to cry in public, but here, in this moment, it seems an impossibility. </p><p>Felix wishes he could wear a shroud, bedeck himself in all black and refuse to leave the castle. </p><p>The problem, he supposes, would be the urge to ever take it off again. </p><p> </p><p>&amp; </p><p> </p><p>The crypt is dark and cold and so utterly unlike Dimitri. His final resting place would have suited the boar far more than the man, and Felix wishes he could kneel on dirt instead of stone when visiting his grave. Soft, natural-- somewhere he could have returned to the earth over time with the sun shining on him. </p><p>His hands are folded on his knee, trembling faintly. He hasn't even begun to speak, and yet he's already crying again. Pathetic.</p><p>Glenn would have called him as such, and he would have been right.</p><p>"Look at me. I've turned into a crybaby all over again. You said it yourself-- I used to want to do everything with you... and I suppose nothing has changed. I wish I could go back and shake my younger self for abandoning you for all those years. Can you even imagine? What I wouldn't do now for an additional decade with you." </p><p>He wishes he could stop crying, Felix angrily brushing the back of his hand over his eyes in an attempt that refuses to bear fruit. How troublesome.</p><p>"I don't know that I would have deserved it. I wouldn't have figured it out, would I? And even if I had, there's nothing to say that I wouldn't have been a coward about it. I couldn't have said anything if it meant risking what we had. And you-- you were married, anyway." They're all excuses, Felix letting his forehead rest on the hands atop his knee. "The truth is that I was a fool, Dima, and I've never deserved you. Maybe that's why I spent so long pushing you away. Why I didn't realize that I--" He lets out a shuddered sigh, wiping at his eyes once more. "That I--" He can't say it, can't will himself to finish the sentence. "You know what I'm trying to say. I know you know. Even if you didn't know before, the dead would have to know, wouldn't they? I don't have to finish the sentence. You wouldn't-- make me do that, would you? If I finish it now, I don't know that I could ever take it back." Not that he wants to. Not that he can, not-- </p><p>Not in his heart of hearts, where he's always loved Dimitri.</p><p>Allowing both his knees to sink onto cold stone, he places his palms flat on the ground, hot tears spilling onto the ground between them. "Forgive me for being such a coward. I'm begging you, please. Because I'm not strong enough to do it myself. I can't. I've always needed you." Fingertips blindly find their way onto the engraved outline of his name. "I've been trying so hard to make sense of it, of my cowardice. I can't be <em>happy</em> without you, but-- I can do my duty, can't I? I don't have a wife or children of my own, so I can aid your son in his own regency just as you were aided by my father... and then me. I just-- wish I could do more. I wish I could hear you-- I don't wish for you not to be at peace, but-- what I wouldn't give just to be able to hear your voice on more time--" </p><p>Steps resound somewhere behind him, far away but coming closer. He needs to leave. </p><p>Wiping his tears with his sleeve once more, Felix makes a quick exit. </p><p>He can always come back. Dimitri isn't going anywhere. </p><p> </p><p>&amp;</p><p> </p><p>His steps always return him to the same place. Dimitri's bedchamber.</p><p>He doesn't remember the last time he slept in his own bed. Dimitri's scent hasn't faded yet, and he can't help but be grateful to this memory of him. </p><p>If he's lucky-- which he's never been before-- it won't fade. But he's not counting on that. </p><p>Instead, he strips off his clothes and grabs Dimitri's cloak off the armor stand before climbing into bed and under the covers. He feels a little like a child in his return to the use of baby blankets and comfort items, but he doesn't care. </p><p>Burying his nose in the fell of his collar, the scent of him threatening to overwhelm, Felix allows himself the sacrilege of wrapping his hand around his cock, his touch part-skin and part-fabric. He thinks he'd do anything to feel closer to Dimitri, to the reality that never came to be. </p><p>The reality that he would never have realized of his own volition.</p><p>Dimitri was always the stronger one of the two of them. If he'd realized, wouldn't he have said something to Felix? If he felt the same, wouldn't he have... wanted more? </p><p>He swallows down his thoughts of hope, each one more painful than the last, and tucks himself more deeply into Dimitri, into the only thing he has left of him, and allows his hand to move. </p><p>He's crying again, but it doesn't matter. Even if he can't hear Dimitri, even if he wasn't granted that small boon, a balm for the gaping wound that refuses to shut-- he can still surround himself in him, imagine that it's his hand around his cock, his touch making him gasp. Instead of his own gasps, it's Dimitri he's hearing. And with his eyes closed and the smell of him all around, it's... not easy, but <em>possible</em> to imagine his presence. </p><p>And-- for just a moment-- it really does feel like it's him, his hand wrapped around his own, guiding him, helping him. </p><p>When he comes, he tries to contain it all in his fingers, his hands, only for some of it to get on the cape, anyway. It's... all right, he decides, the fact that it's the both of them now, that the cape and the bed and everything else will over time come to smell like Felix as much as it smells like Dimitri. </p><p>It's a little like sharing a life with him, after all. </p><p> </p><p>&amp;</p><p> </p><p>He bends the knee to the young crown prince the next day alongside his decision to stay at the castle, to remain the regent's right hand and advisor. To do his sworn duty. Nicolai, after all, would need a proper education on how to govern properly, and there was no one more suited for the task than Felix. </p><p>The decision comes with one stipulation, one lone request, and Felix moves into Dimitri's former bedchamber the day after. </p><p>The queen knows, he thinks. He's fairly certain. She's never much liked him, but that's never bothered him before, and she has no political pull to actually justify getting rid of him, not considering his own name, title, and position. </p><p>And Nicolai has always liked him. Nicolai, who is just as easy to like in return if only on account of his looking just like his father-- blonde hair and the kindest eyes he's ever seen. </p><p>Dimitri's used to carry such weight, such guilt within them. Felix can only hope that he can spare his son the same fate. </p><p>He visits his crypt every night, as dutifully as a pious man committed to his prayers, and hopes he's made Dimitri proud. That he's become the sort of man that Dimitri would have wanted to be with, if he was still alive. </p><p>Duty alone had never been enough, not for either of them. Felix wouldn't be satisfied unless and until his whole heart and soul belonged to Dimitri. </p><p>His only mistake had been in thinking that they hadn't always. </p><p>Because they had. Of course they had. </p><p>It would have been impossible not to fall in love with Dimitri, after all. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Come yell about dimilix with me over on <a href="https://www.twitter.com/androugenius">twitter</a>!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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